Design & Form was established 40 years ago. 2023 therefore represents an important milestone for us so, in this article, we thought we’d offer a short insight into how the business has developed.

Back in 2018, we published a similar article to coincide with our 35th anniversary. In it, we described our history and evolution up to that point. We won’t re-tell that same story here but, since a great deal has changed during the intervening years, it is worth detailing our progress over that time.

Our Founding Principles: Function & Good Design

First, it’s important to state that, despite our steady expansion, our founding principles remain very much the same. Design & Form was created with the intention of developing baths that enhanced the bathing experience; products that put the emphasis firmly on function and good design. Aesthetics were also important, of course, but the principal concern was to offer baths that were extremely comfortable, exceptionally robust, and capable of delivering decades of trouble-free performance.

The development of our proprietary composite Ficore® was a key step towards achieving this. As we explain here, it’s a material that greatly outperforms other conventional materials. It exhibits excellent heat-retention, chemical resistance and abrasion resistance, and it can be produced in any colour. Crucially, it also permits a fineness of detail that is impossible using more conventional materials.

Another of our proprietary materials is Vitrite, a cast resin that is used in the manufacture of certain baths for trade clients including high-end showrooms. Vitrite has many of the same properties as Ficore but it replicates a high gloss ceramic-style finish. More details about our unique materials can be found here.

Design & Form: A Recent History

Good design and unique, high-performance materials therefore lie at the heart of our business and they have given us a strong foundation on which to build. Between 1983 and 2018, we grew substantially and launched a raft of new products under the Cabuchon brand. These included the world’s first modern deep soaking tub (the Imersa, in 1991), the award-winning Pleasance, and a succession of other soaking tubs that offer variations and refinements on the original design. Most recently, these included the easy-access Takara deep soaking tub.

For customers who choose to visit us, the most visible change in our business has been its scale. In 2018, we were operating from a single industrial unit, but we have since doubled the size of our manufacturing plant by opening up a second premises nearby. The expansion gave us much-needed extra capacity at a time when demand was growing quickly.

In 2020, the Covid pandemic and associated lockdowns forced millions of people to spend more time in their homes and, for many of them, this afforded a chance to reappraise their living environment. Many chose to refurbish and to include new bathroom designs in their plans. This drove a substantial increase in enquiries and orders, and since then, demand has continued to grow. That has been partly due to the recent boom in housing market activity – home moves being another reason why people choose to invest in new bathrooms – but we have also been seeing a significant rise in orders from business clients, too.

Design & Form and Bespoke Bath Manufacture

Design & Form always differentiated itself on the basis of its custom manufacturing capabilities. We can produce baths of almost any size and shape, in any colour and with a host of special options such as:

  • Hydrotherapy
  • Chromotherapy
  • Built-in Bluetooth sound systems

Although Cabuchon can offer these value-added extras too, Design & Form can offer completely bespoke bath designs. Some private homeowners choose to take advantage of this capability, as do numerous architects and interior designers. However, the largest and most regular orders tend to come from high-end bathroom showrooms and companies selling specialist products for technically demanding markets.

A good example of the latter is Active Birth Pools, a British-based company that sells birthing pools to hospitals across the world. The company has worked closely with our technical specialists to develop baths in various sizes and to meet its very exacting design requirements. The result of that collaboration is a range that has won several prestigious awards. The judges of the 2015 Building Better Healthcare Awards noted that:

“The combination of evidence based, user-centred, ergonomic design, specialised materials and bespoke manufacturing has resulted in water birth pools that are truly in a class of their own.”

One of our previous blog posts records that we have been working with Active Birth Pools since 2014. As the article reports, midwifery professionals have described the company’s products as “revolutionary” and “technically perfect”.

The founder and managing director of Active Birth Pools is Keith Brainin. He notes that:

“Working with Design & Form has made a huge difference to my business. Being able to realise the designs for my Water Birth Pools in Ficore® composite has taken them to a new level of excellence and made them truly world-class. The team at Design & Form are great to deal with and always deliver on time and to standard. It’s been an absolute pleasure doing business with them”

That same focus on excellent design and quality manufacturing underpins our work with leading bathroom showrooms. We are the original equipment manufacturer behind some of the most attractive and celebrated luxury baths on the market today.

One of those showrooms is The Water Monopoly. It has been based in London for more than 30 years and, in our own anniversary year, it made the decision to move new and larger premises. Design & Form has been a supplier to the business for many years, manufacturing some of its most popular luxury bath models.

The company’s founder, Justin Homewood, describes the relationship between the two businesses. He says:

“We have established a genuine partnership with Design & Form, in the true sense of the word. It’s based on mutual respect and effective communication; a two-way flow of ideas. We know that we can count of Design & Form for great design input, a real willingness to help and, of course, a reliable supply of really top-quality baths.”

Looking Ahead

We have been fortunate to have been led by visionaries in the field of quality bath design. Design & Form was founded by the experienced British product designer, Jeffrey F. Harrison and subsequently headed by the much-missed Tony Pontin, who acquired the business in 1993.

Both men valued function and design above all other qualities when it came to developing high quality baths. They also placed a huge emphasis on customer service and delivering true value for money; products that cut no corners but offer outstanding performance and reliability.

Today, we are upholding their legacy. The principles that they espoused remain at the heart of our business. We continue to innovate and we choose to lead market trends rather than follow them. Consequently, in the coming months and years, we will remain committed to introducing new and better products, to expanding the business and to offering customers the very best in custom bath design.